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Alex Dolin, stress management coach

Intentional Christianity

…a Christian can do in this day and age is to live in a Christian bubble, with only Christian friends and never develop real relationships with the lost.

This has been my observation as have been studying evangelism, the post-modern culture, and the church.

You see the culture is more relativistic. They are less likely to be concerned with any theory that claims to be the one true way. They are more skeptical of any type of theory or logic, in general. They have questions but they are not sure what type of answer they want. They enjoy the journey of life.

What they value and want is real relationship. They want someone to love them, listen to them. 1. Becuase all humans desire this. 2. Becuase there is a higher value on this in the post-modern society. Community and social connection. People want to share ideas and blend the relative ideas together. They are extremely acceptable and tolerant of pretty much any belief system, as long as it does not claim to be the “One true way.”

Missional churches have placed a lot of time and creatively into the methods of evangelism. Let me tell you, these creative ways of sharing the Gospel, some of them are pretty effictive. But the biggest thing I have learned and like about most of these missional expiriments is this: the foundation of the outreach is a relationship.

Live out your faith, live out Jesus in your life. Build a real relationship with your lost friends and do not base the relationship on if they go to church with you or not. Do not base it on if they accept Jesus or not. Just be real with them. Be honest with them. Love them. DO invite them to church with you, but do not try to force anything on them.

The most dangerous thing a Christian cna do is to not have any non-Christian frineds, not share his faith, live in a Christian bubble. This is dangerous and bad for all Christians for several reasons!

It portrays a selfish “fat baby” Christian and Christinity. We have portrayed Christianity in a negative light and outsiders have a negative (false) perception of what Christianity is and what we are about long enough! It is time to demonstrate the Gospel and live as Jesus did!

It is not responsible way to live. God has called us to share our faith with others.

It shows lack of maturity, shallowness , and misplacement of priorities. Is Jesus Christ your first love? Prove it.

My own comments added

Be unashamedly spiritual. People are tired of the modern belief that everything can be answered by science and reason. They are open to something mystical and spiritual. Thus the rejection of modernism and entering of post-modernism.

Promote incarnational ministry. Authenticity is essential. Postmoderns are looking for persons who are genuine and transparent. It is not the job of the unchurched postmodern to enter our culture. It is our job to invade theirs (become incarnate) with the unchanging truth of the gospel. I like the fact that this author is promoting unchanging truth! And the fact that he is not so caught up in the post-modern movement that he doesn’t accept evangelism. The fact that he wants to “invade their culture” tells me that he is strong in His foundation of the truth and still understands the Great commission.

Worship experientially. Postmoderns want to experience God, not just see a show about him. A dynamic worshiping community becomes a powerful apologetic to a generation open to the spiritual but not knowing how to connect with the Spirit.

Preach narrative expository messages. Jesus frequently used narratives or stories in his preaching, and often the story was the point. Preaching biblical stories connects to a culture that sees stories as a source of truth. This is true.

Appreciate and participate in ancient patterns. Postmodern leaders are spellbound by the ancient- future faith of the past. There is a new interest in ancient things: Gregorian chants, Celtic Christianity, ancient art, etc. The church can embrace those that promote biblical truth.

Experience visual worship. Paintings, banners, candles and other imagery can help share the gospel message. In the postmodern age, truth can be expressed in images illuminating biblical truth. this is a neat part of the post-modern era that is fun because Christians are using their God-given talents, abilities, and passions to further the Gospel in fun way

Engage in service. Offer an outlet for their passion to serve. Genuine faith always expresses itself in ministry. As postmoderns see that faith produces service, the validity of the faith is proved. A wonderful outlet for this is to engage postmoderns in mission work.

Connect with technology. Churches trying to reach postmoderns not only will use technology in worship, but they also will promote community through that technology. I love this too. As you might expect, a blogger/web designer for the Lord!

Live community. Community is a central value in most effective churches reaching postmoderns. With a culture eager for genuine community, the Church can offer community with people and with God.

Promote team-based leadership. Leadership in the postmodern context tends to be dramatically different than it was in other models. In the modern context, the leader was penalized for transparency. Leaders who shared their struggles frequently regretted it later as it became an example in future arguments. In the postmodern era, struggle and consequently transparency is more valued.

I have to reference a podcast I listened to from Apologetics.com on this topicBut I have been thinking a lot on the topic from reading Speaking to Teenagers, oddly enough.The same ideas about persuasion are followed in both instances, going back to the Greek philosopher Aristotle’s ideas of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. I have been trained on this a lot recently in my Communications and Philosophy classes that I took this quarter at Ohio University.

A very brief overview of these three things is explained well here:

Ethos (Credibility), or ethical appeal, means convincing by the character of the author.

Pathos (Emotional) means persuading by appealing to the reader’s emotions.

Logos(Logical) means persuading by the use of reasoning.

One thing that is difficult for intellectual Christians, like myself, is finding the balance between showing love and doing real evangelism verses studying theology and talking about it. We can get so caught up in learning and studying theology, for a number of reasons: Ranging from us wanting to know the Lord better to wanting to be able to make a strong argument for our faith, or desiring the knowledge in hopes of receiving a Doctorate degree. Let’s focus on using this knowledge to help us make a strong case for our faith.Studying theology to win intellectual arguments can be a great thing, but it can also be dangerous and a waste of time. Knowing knock-out winning arguments is not true evangelism. God can and will use these on His own time but in our own prideful ways these arguments can be in vain.

1 Cor. 13: 13 So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.My rant :Showing Christ’s Genuine Love in your life, is the best way to persuade other’s for Christ. Yes, having knowledge about theology can help and I am not saying that you are completely wasting your time by studying theology and “always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope” (1 peter 3 :15) . There is a balance.Studying theology and knowing these knock-out arguments becomes dangerous when we put them above love and above Christ working through us. It is a problem when we put more trust in ourselves, our arguments in this theology rather than truly loving our friends (and enemies) – or anyone we are explaining this theology to- and depending on Christ and his love.

I am still thinking about this idea of persuasion in our faith. Love and reason.

Christian One: “So what did you do Tuesday night?”Christian Two: “Went out with Brother Tom, Pastor Bill, and my wife to Applebee’s.”Christian One: “Interesting Wednesday night, did you do anything special?”Christian Two: “Brother Tom, Pastor Bill, my wife, and I went to go see that new movie.”Christian One: “How about Thursday night?”Christian Two: “My wife and I played cards with Brother Tom, and Pastor Bill.”Christian One: “And Friday night?”Christian Two: “Brother Tom and Pastor Bill, and I had guy’s night at his house.”

…….You get the idea! A problem I am discovering, of Christianity, as a whole, (as well as in my life) is that we are in constant fellowship with ourselves – Christians! If we do not INTENTIONALLY sharing our faith, we have a problem!

Fellowship is good, yes? But you can do too much of it…remember that there are many aspects to our faith while Fellowship is a part of it. But so is evangelism. Think about what too much (or a life completely filled with fellowship) does to our attitudes of sharing the gospel. Especially if we not only live around Christians, but are trained well in theology and discipleship…our heads get bigger but our heart for the lost gets hard and smaller. We say to ourselves…”God is Sovereign, I mentioned my faith…” and that is it…. that is sad.

A heart of evangelism, a heart of worship. A heart for the lost….that is what we need! Never give up on sharing your faith!

There are a lot of people in this (ever-turning towards a post-Christian) American society that get this bitter edge when they hear that I am a Christian. Or they get uncomfortably awkward. They say that most Christians they have meet are hypocrites or too extreme. They have a false-dichotomy of the Christian faith. And Unfotunately both sides of the dichotomy are negative. Have you ever considered/wondered why people think they way they do about Christians? They think such negative things because they do not understand us. They don’t know what the Gospel is, they are not hearing it enough from humble hearts. From Christians who care and are intentional about their faith.

What we should do? Well that is why I started this blog. I am all about learning more about theology and finding other really great Christian fellowship, discipleship, training, and ministry tools online….but I will never stop sharing my faith. The Lord gives us each opportunities in our lives, to go into the World and make disciples. I want to help others do this! As I am journeying to do the same.